In many industrial sawing applications, results may be improved by applying coolant to the blade during the sawing process. Past attempts to apply coolant to a rapidly spinning blade have only been partially successful. In practice, large amounts of water are used in the hope that some small amount will finally reside in the desired area such as the point of contact between the blade and the material to be cut. Heat is the enemy of any sawing process since excessive heat causes rapid blade wear, poor surface quality, and burning of the material to be cut. Coolant which is applied directly to the source of heat generation vaporizes into steam and removes heat at the generation point thus alleviating these problems.
Present technology injects coolant into a guard for the blade on both sides of the blade in an effort to force intimate contact with the blade and the water in a restricted area. This results in an explosion of coolant where the blade leaves the guard and also results in poor wetting of the blade. Present practice in some variations allows one side of the blade to become wetter than the other whereby the blade cuts at an angle which in turn leads to excessive blade wear and poor cuts. Coolant is applied in excessive amounts and ejects from both sides of the saw blade along the material to be cut with a resultant housekeeping problem as well as the expense of the lost coolant.
The present invention is directed to solution of the above-described problems and is based on a recognition that laminar air flow on the surface of the blade must be interrupted and turbulence created in an area wherein additonal coolant will fully wet the blade surface and maximize the coolant carried into the arc of contact between the blade and the material to be cut.